Conventional drywall is installed in segmented pieces. Each one of these segments is placed adjacent to other segments, thereby creating seams between the pieces. A great deal of work must be done to conceal these seams. A skilled operator is often required to apply multiple coats of filler material. The first coat of such filler is carefully worked into the seam or over tape which covers the seam. On each successive coat, the user must adjust the angle, pressure, and distance the drywall knife blade is offset from the seam. This multiple-step operation has been necessitated by the fact that the conventional knife is flat, while the joint compound formation it is used to create is curved. This multiple-step operation has also been necessitated by the propensity of the conventional knife to produce air pockets in the filler and to urge filler out the sides of the blade. Multiple coats of filler are applied such that a gradual, crowned (i.e. convex) surface of filler is placed over the seam. The thickest layer of filler is disposed directly over the seam or tape, and the thickness of the filler gradually decreases until it becomes flush with the wall. This gradual change in the thickness of the filler must be subtle enough that the casual observer will not take note of the filler material itself and instead see only an apparently flat wall. Thus, the spreading of the filler over the adjacent drywall sections, and the rest of the drywall sections, has been tedious, time consuming, and requires great skill.
The same conventional knife that has been used to apply the joint compound, or the like, to the tape and adjoining wall sections has also been used to spread plastic compounds to smooth surface irregularities on other planar surfaces. This can also be a tedious, time consuming, skill-requiring task due to the aforementioned characteristics of the conventional knife.
Previous attempts to address similar drywall related issues have been attempted in the prior art, but none has proven entirely satisfactory. Reference may be had to U.S. Pat. Nos. 109,073 to Steeter (Improvement in Corner Trowel); 952,971 to Wolary et al. (Trowel); 1,067,301 to Bricker (Trowel); 1,083,099 to Howg (Adjustable Plastering Trowel); 1,999,367 to McCorkle (Trowel); 2,178,899 to Shaffer (Trowel); 2,947,017 to Dybdahl (Wallboard Joint Finishing Tool); 2,968,057 to Pratt (Adjustable Contour Knife); 3,341,878 to Hubbard (Hand Finishing Tool); 3,878,581 to Perna (Finishing Tool for Wallboard Surfaces); 4,097,951 to Hurt (Spreader having integrally molded deformable handle and bendable blade); 4,253,214 to Bushee (Finish work trowel); 4,619,013 to Yon (Wall Corner Finishing Tool); 4,631,019 to House (Combination applicator and shaper for moldable materials); 4,731,258 to Liberman (Method for applying plaster and cement to wallboard and the like); 4,784,598 to Kranz (Drywall tool); 5,351,357 to Liberman (Spreader tool for applying bonding compounds to planar surfaces; and 6,880,198 to Hazard (Adjoining Surface Device for Working Viscous Materials). The content of each of the aforementioned patents is hereby incorporated by reference into this specification.
Each of these approaches are deficient in that none of the tools teach a method for bending existing drywall blades; instead a specialized blade must be purchased. Moreover, these approaches are deficient in that such tools fail to properly steer the filler material to the center of the blade, and thus are inefficient.
It is an object of this invention to provide at least one of the following:
(1) a blade bender configured to be attached to a drywall blade which acts so as to bend the blade at an adjustable angle. Such a blade bender is adapted to fit at least one commercially available drywall blade,
(2) a kit comprised of two substantially identical blade benders configured to bend the blade of a drywall knife,
(3) an assembly comprised of a drywall knife blade and two blade benders configured to bend the blade such that the blade achieves an arcuate edge,
(4) provide an arcuate drywall knife that is significantly less costly and more easily manufactured than prior art drywall knifes, and/or
(5) provide a tool that allows a user to apply filler compounds to a section of drywall wherein a lower level of skill is required.